He doesn’t like to be called Black Jesus. It is racist. Jesus of Nazareth was a middle-eastern Jew, so he was definitely dark-skinned if not Black. This blue-eyed blondie whose pictures were hung in the church is more likely to be Constantine’s cousin than Jesus Christ, the savior of mankind.
For a while, he got his friends to call him Jesus of Detroit, but the nickname did not catch on, either because it was too long or because he had never been to Detroit. It doesn’t matter anymore. Some shallow clowns make fun of his name once in a while. No big deal. “I am Jesus Christ,” he would tell them, “resurrected to save your funny ass from more abuse,” and they would shut up.
His palette and canvas under his arm, he approaches his usual evening spot, a willow tree at the edge of the cliff in Eden Adventure Park where he works. A painter by evening and a zip line operator by day, Jesus is a skinny 33-year-old Black man of average height. Average is the word that describes most of his traits, except his ambition. He has in him what it takes to do something big one day. Something that will fill people with awe. “Who’s that awesome guy?” they will ask. “The name’s Jesus,” he would reply to her. “He was with you, and yet you didn’t recognize Him him.”
Forget about Sally, Jesus tells himself and kicks a broken branch out of his way. He needs a distraction to chill again. Something positive. Someone showing love and admiration for who he really is. God bless social media!
With his free hand, he brings out his beaten-up Samsung phone and wakes it. The notification shows three missed calls, all from Mom. Aargh! Jesus clears them and instead goes directly to Twitter, opening his own last Tweet. It is the picture of his recent painting, the portrait of himself crucified on the cross. Dang! Only two people have liked it so far. Jesus refreshes the page, just in case. The number of likes does not improve.
On Twitter, Jesus has 15 followers, two of which are spam accounts. He can tell since neither have any followers and also because of their suspicious account names: SexyRose193 and HotChick942. There are at least 941 other creative bots out there who could not think of a name better than HotChick. The two spam accounts are the only ones that ever like Jesus’ tweets, each time almost immediately after he posts them. Jesus does not block them because…well, because 15 followers are still better than 13, even if some of them are fake.
Jesus refreshes the page again. The number of likes on his last painting is still two.
Painting is his only joy in this world. It eases the pain like no other drug can. Especially when it is from a wound that is deep, old, and rotten, and Jesus has had one of those for ten years now. He picked up painting shortly after Sally dumped him. Starting off by painting his father, the first paintings depicted a strong, tall Black man with serious, yet kind, eyes. That is how his mother, Maria, had described him. All Jesus had to do was fill the missing bits and pieces with his imagination, which turns out to have no limits. Over time, the portrait of his father in his next paintings became more and more godlike. Under the post of the most recent one on Twitter, a follower has commented, ‘Is it a Greek god? Why black?!!’ How come Greek gods are never Black? Or how come Indian gods are never Japanese? How come Greek gods never party with Indian gods? Are gods racist too? These are the questions that his godlike father could have answered if he was still around.
His father passed away before he was born, according to the tales Maria has repeated over the years about his faceless father. How no picture could be left of a man in the 21st century, is a unsolved mystery. Not even one photo from their wedding! The contradictory explanations that Maria gave him were never convincing enough. Such lies that Maria has fabricated over the years. Whatever happened to the ninth commandment: thou shall not bear false witness? So many questions, yet not a single convincing answer. Who knows? His father might be even still alive. Perhaps Maria hides the pictures so that Jesus would not recognize him. He might be a famous person; or even a celebrity.
Immersed in his thoughts, Jesus strokes his shaved cheeks as if they are covered by a beard. Why did he do that?! For some reason he was picturing himself with a long beard, half of it burnt in a deadly fire. Weird! Having been well shaved ever since puberty kicked in, he cannot even imagine that one day he would grow a beard so long that it could be stroked. Was it deja vu? He hopes not. No one awaits a future where they are burnt or crucified.
Jesus remembers the portrait of himself crucified on the cross, which he holds under his right arm. The canvas is still torn around the face of the Roman soldier. The beautiful woman in the painting, however, is still intact, although the furious eyes of the crucified Jesus are not taken off her yet. This evening, he wants to try the painting again without, however, the same violent ending. What should be changed in the picture? The Roman soldier, the red-haired, beautiful woman, or his own unforgiving look.
The phone vibrates. The notification bar says, “TheTrueGod666 replied to your tweet.” Pumped with excitement, Jesus taps the notification. The Twitter app opens, showing the replied text: ‘LET IT GO!!!’
Let it go! Jesus mutters, puzzled and at the same time curious. He opens the sender’s profile on Twitter, which says: ‘You know me.’ The account has zero followers. What a loser! It might even be a spam account. Nevertheless the message of the reply kind of makes sense. Spam accounts usually reply with nonsense.
Jesus is staring at the ‘LET IT GO!!!’ text when a like appears below it. And another. And another. In a short time, all the Jesus followers like the reply—except for the two spam accounts of course. One even replies with a GIF of Princess Elsa from the Frozen movie singing the Let It Go song. That gets Jesus to ponder. “Let…it…go,” he mutters. He joins his followers and likes the reply to his tweet. “Let it go-o-o,” he sings and looks up at the image of his painting in the tweet. “Let it go-o-o-o.”
What should Jesus change in the painting? An idea! I gotta let it go. I should be able to forgive; that’s what Jesus would do, Jesus thinks. But whom should he forgive?
The soldier?
The pretty woman?
Himself?
Or God? After all, it was God who painted the story of his life. He is at fault partly—if not entirely—for the agony that Jesus has gone through.
Jesus has not figured that out yet; he badly needs a moment of clarity, enlightenment, or a miracle perhaps.
His phone vibrates. It might be a new message from TheTrueGod666. His excitement melts away quickly when the screen displays the name ‘Mom’. Leave me alone! Jesus sighs and declines the call that interrupted what could have been a divine inspiration. He puts the phone back into his pocket and keeps walking toward the willow tree at the edge of the cliff.
Turning his head up to the sky, where the inspiration awaits him, Jesus tries to find the sun hiding behind the clouds. He ducks when a fist comes at his face. What’re you doing, Omar, Jesus says before realizing it was just another vision. He has been having lots of such visions lately, all foreseeing a violent future awaiting him. Perhaps they are just hallucinations. They better be. The future cannot possibly be that dark.
He is near the cliff when his left foot hits something. Sadness covers his face when he looks down. A dark-gray pigeon with green-purple iridescence is lying on the ground.
Dropping the canvas and the palette on the ground, he rushes and kneels before her. With love and care, he holds the seemingly dead pigeon in his arm. With his finger, he gently caresses the feathers on top of her head.
She does not move.
Tears well up in his eyes. What would Jesus do? Jesus wonders and feels his skin tingled with saintly energy that comes directly from the sky, from somewhere behind the clouds. Traveling through the network of neurons, the energy soon reaches every tired cell of his body, with its heavenly touch giving them a new life. He feels a divine presence throughout his body as if he is a host to a holy spirit resurrected within him.
Jesus closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. For the first time in his life, he feels right. He has embodied his destiny. He opens his eyes when he realizes that he is impulsively blowing upon the lifeless pigeon.
A lively yellow light shines on her feathers.
Jesus looks up and notices that the sun rules the sky again as it was ruling his heart. Inspired, he kisses the pigeon and throws her over the cliff, his wishful gaze follows her beginning her resurrected life.
The pigeon plummets to the bottom of the cliff like a dead stone; so does Jesus’ self-esteem and the entire bright future that he has built in his mind.
It hurts. It hurts like never before.
With his face wrinkled with pain, he closes his eyes and drops his head.
FLAP! FLAP! FLAP!
Confused by the sound, Jesus opens his eyes.
The pigeon appears from the edge of the cliff and flutters up to the sky.
Hurrah! It worked. It really worked. The miracles do exist. His face splits into a wide grin. It feels like the joy of the world to see the pigeon flying again.
Another pigeon with green-purple iridescence appears from the edge of the cliff, and joining the other one, flies away. They look alike to Jesus, as normally pigeons do to humans. Which one did Jesus bring back to life? Or is she one of the two flying away? She should be. Yeah, she must be. No reason to ruin the majestic moment by overthinking. He congratulates his miraculous hand with a gentle kiss. Or was it the blow that was miraculous? Does not matter, he thinks.
Jesus looks around. There is no one to share this joyous moment with, nor anyone to have witnessed the miraculous act. Who cares? he thinks. I witnessed that, and I know it’s true. That’s all that counts.
Inspired, he is ready to start over. He can vividly see the happy ending in his next attempt at the painting. An ending free of violence. He has got to get rid of the old one as soon as possible. He looks around to find a place to dump it. There is no trash bin around. Behind the willow tree, there is a bush, but people might find it by accident. His gaze turns and falls on the cliff from which the resurrected pigeon flew away. An idea! No one would look down there. Taking a deep, relaxed breath, he throws the painting over the cliff. It feels good.
All energized, he sits on the grass, leaning back on the tree. He takes a blank stretched canvas and paints himself on the cross.
A reborn Jesus, a new painting.